Statistics jokes

June 27, 2013

Topic

Statistics  / 

There’s a fun CrossValidated thread on statistics jokes. Here’s the one with the top votes:

A statistician’s wife had twins. He was delighted. He rang the minister who was also delighted. “Bring them to church on Sunday and we’ll baptize them,” said the minister. “No,” replied the statistician. “Baptize one. We’ll keep the other as a control.

This line by George Burns is my favorite though:

If you live to be one hundred, you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age.

Any other good ones?

This is still one of my favorites:

Two kinds of people

And this:

Best Math Question EVAR

[via @alexlundry]

14 Comments

  • Max — June 27, 2013 at 6:50 am

    A physicist, an engineer, and a statistician go hunting. They see a deer in the distance and the physicist takes the first shot, missing low because in his calculations he assumed he was shooting in a vacuum. The engineer shoots next, raising her rifle too much to account for air resistance, and misses high. The statistician yells, “we got it!”.

  • Raphael — June 27, 2013 at 7:56 am

    This isn’t exactly stats, but stats-influenced psych joke:
    A psychologist has a child. Soon after, he publishes a well-regarded text book called “Child development”.
    A year later, he has a second child, and publishes a follow-up textbook called “Variations in child development”.
    Soon after, he has a third child. He retires.

  • Sean Lahman — June 27, 2013 at 8:24 am

    There are two kinds of statisticians: 1) Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.

  • Tom — June 27, 2013 at 9:25 am

    Not quite on topic, but . . .

    There are 10 types of people in this world: Those who understand binary, those who don’t, and those who didn’t expect this joke to be in base 3.

  • Paul — June 27, 2013 at 9:50 am

    How can you tell if a statistician is an extrovert? He looks at your shoes when he talks to you.

  • r_w — June 27, 2013 at 10:30 am

    How does a statistician cure constipation. He works it out with a pencil.

    • Lyndle — June 27, 2013 at 7:02 pm

      Corollary: how does the engineer cure constipation? He works it out with a calculator.
      (Sorry about the ‘he’ – i jst couldn’t bring myself to write She on this one)

  • Tom — June 28, 2013 at 3:48 am

    Birthdays are proven to be good for you – the more you have, the longer you live.

  • Aaron — June 29, 2013 at 5:03 am

    “Y’know, you can’t please all the people all the time… and last night, all those people were at my show.” -Mitch Hedberg. I often begin explaining sampling bias with this joke.

  • Nate — June 29, 2013 at 11:28 am

    My favorite stats joke ever:
    http://xkcd.com/552/

  • FIlip — July 2, 2013 at 9:53 am

    There are dozens of statistical jokes here: http://bit.ly/9d4rYD

  • Nat — July 5, 2013 at 7:36 pm

    I was told this about 20 years ago, didn’t get it at all, and then when it was explained to me I have never forgotten it:
    Q: Why do mathematicians confuse Halloween and Christmas?
    A: Because Oct 31 = Dec 25.
    (That is, octal 31 = decimal 25.)

  • santiago — July 7, 2013 at 2:25 pm

    The antonym of Big Data: Minority Report